Archive for 'Parks and Historical Sites'

The fact that Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge exists at all is somewhat of a miracle, as the entire area was destined to be a subdivision in 1980. The savior of Ash Meadows was the Devils Hole pupfish.

Tonopah’s Central Nevada Museum, founded in 1981 by the Central Nevada Historical Society, features an outdoor exhibit which includes an old west town where visitors can explore miners’ cabins, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, the railroad yard.

There have been no ichthyosaurs swimming in the inland oceans of Nevada for 200 million years. But the 36 fossil specimens of the giant prehistoric reptiles found here have lent their name to the Nevada state fossil.

The Petroglyph Canyon trail in Valley of Fire State Park traverses a box canyon to its terminus near “Mouse’s Tank,” a natural basin named for a Southern Paiute who allegedly used the area as a hideout in the 1890s.

Construction of Rye Patch Dam began in 1935 and was completed the following year. The 75-foot-high, earth-filled dam was built to control floods on the Humboldt River and provide more dependable irrigation for agricultural land.

Lovelock Cave was intermittently occupied by Native Americans from approximately 3,500 years ago until the middle of the 19th century. It is considered by archaeologists to be one of the most important sites in the history of North American archaeology.

In 1876 the mining district of Ward was the largest town in White Pine County. The Ward ores required the high burning temperature of charcoal for milling, prompting the construction of the charcoal ovens in the mid 1870s.

The U.S. Army established Fort Churchill in July 1860 to protect wagon roads and settlers in the region following the bloody battles that year of the Pyramid Lake War between local miners and settlers, and the Northern Paiutes and their allies.

The Nevada Northern Railway Museum in Ely is dedicated to the restoration, preservation, interpretation, and operation of the Nevada Northern Railway’s historic rail facilities. In this VR feature you may explore the yards and enter the buildings in virtual reality.

Travel 17 miles west of the neon canyons of Las Vegas and you’ll find the red sandstone formations of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Visited by more than a million people each year, this 195,819 acre area is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.

Atlatl Rock is named for the Anasazi petroglyph of the Atlatl man, depicted holding his weapon, with a larger atlatl shown above him. Atlatl Rock is located within Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada’s oldest and largest park, six miles from Lake Mead and 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is at 7,000 feet on the western slope of central Nevada’s Shoshone mountain range. Berlin saw its heyday in 1908, diminishing to nothing by 1911. The total production of the Berlin mine was estimated to have been $849,000.